Posted on 08/01/25
I remember a Tisha B’av two decades ago. It was before five wars and thousands of missiles. Before October 7, close to two years of hostages and a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Before 1000s of Israelis and 10,000s of Palestinians had died or children were starving for food. But twenty years ago, Gaza was still on our minds. The Tisha B’av twenty years ago was the day before the withdrawal.
I remember for months before Tisha B’Av, the battle in Israel between the “blues” and the “oranges”. The by-line of Yehudi Lo Migaresh Yehudi – Jews do not chase away Jews. I remember the picture of Israelis making a minyan through a fence – some on one side, supporting the withdrawal and some on the other, protesting it, both Davening to the same Hashem.
I remember on that Tisha b’av, thinking about those who were in Gush Katif and what that day must be like in those communities. For us the day after Tisha B’av was to be a day getting up from three weeks of mourning, for them it was to be the beginning of years of misery. No jobs or places to go or live. Organizations would be formed to try to help those who were displaced.
I remember the pictures from the day after Tisha B’av of Gush Katif residents being driven from their homes and forced into busses by Israeli soldiers. The greenhouses, buildings and economy that they had built with their own hands were transferred to others who did not earn them and eventually destroyed in their destructive rage. Even the graves were dug up and moved to prevent desecration. I remember the reports of even the soldiers crying and the Rabbi on Shabbos pausing before saying the Tefilla for the Tzahal, as for the first time he could remember, he could not condone all the action the IDF was about to take.
I remember the well-meaning sentiment of so many Israelis and others in the world, wanting to give the Arab refugees a chance to build a country that they could call their own to end their current suffering. These Israelis so wanted peace with their Arab neighbors that they supported evicting their own brothers from hard built communities to give a group of refugees, already a thorn on Israel’s side, a costly olive branch. (While the world now calls giving the current residents in Gaza even the option to leave a war zone a genocide, the forcible removal of these Israelis from their homes was seen as seen as “progress”.) Other Israelis protested, seeing the move as dangerous and leading to more war, not peace.
Twenty years and mounds of bodies and destruction later, I wonder if any sane individual, Jew or gentile, Israeli or Palestinian who had a crystal ball at the time and could see the future would have supported such a move. Although the Palestinians gained some dignity in self-governance for a short period of time, it was only a few years later that they voted in a government that brutally clamped down on opposition and abused them while provoking its Israeli neighbor into five wars and a blockade. Yes, the displaced persons camps the Palestinians had lived in were humiliating. Their own brothers in the other Arab countries did not let them in, and the Israelis could not without destroying their own state. Life was unfair, but I have no doubt that it would have been preferred than to start the trail of history that has led us to our current disastrous reality. And that is not even to mention the living hell that the rocket attacks caused to those that gave them that chance for dignity and were repaid with even less security.
On Tisha B’Av, we remember and mourn the disasters of Jewish history. We try to use our hindsight to see the problems of the past and fix them for the future. When I hear the angry lines made by Israeli leaders that they should retake Gaza permanently, a part of me is angry that they are using such dangerous rhetoric when Israel is already facing such a challenging PR crisis. However, looking back at that Tisha B’Av and its surrounding events, part of me understands why they are calling for the take back of Gaza. Unlike much of the world, they have not forgotten history. Perhaps they are simply saying that history is already full of enough repeated mistakes. I don’t know what the answer is, but they are saying, “Let us not repeat this one.”
Yehoshua Goldfinger is a Yeshiva educated Software Engineer, having spent 10 years in 3 different Yeshivos post-high school and spending the last decade working in defense, logistics and now finance. He loves bouncing the ideas he sees in both worlds off each other. He lives in the Orthodox Jewish community of Baltimore, MD with his wonderful wife and five terrific kids.